Is there a "Daniel Johnston:Nazi?" thread yet?

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from fructose vegan---"Daniel Johnston played SXSW this year. I was there, but I never saw him. Though I was pretty excited Daniel was playing, I didn't even make a serious effort to see him when I got there. I never checked to see exactly how many shows he was playing, but I knew I'd have to ditch my own day show to see him one time, and that another one of his shows was in the convention center (aka I wasn't getting in without a badge).

Sunday night over dinner I was telling a friend from Austin how disappointed I was - if only I had planned more maybe I could have caught him. My friend asked if I had heard about Daniel's recent interest in anti-semitism and Nazis. I said I hadn't. He said it was true. I said I guess I didn't regret missing him as much anymore. Neither of us had heard anything about how the SXSW shows went.

Today I did a search, and it looks like not only is it true, but it surfaced in Daniel's act at SXSW too. Here's an interesting review:
Today at the Convention Center, Austin icon and OG “outsider artist” Daniel Johnston told two jokes before a jam-packed day stage crowd:

1. “I heard they just sentenced a man to the death penalty… for trying to commit suicide.”

2. “I heard the Jews are having a pajama party… at the concentration camp.”

Daniel punctuated the last one, which drew a pretty uncomfortable silence, with a Nazi salute and a screechy “Heil Hitler.” [scan]
Further confirmation at The Mercury News and at James Hill's blog.

Can you blame Daniel for anything he says? His mental illness is well documented. Is it just for shock value? As usual, I don't know, but I don't really like it. I guess I'd need to know more about the context before rushing to judgement, but either way I say he drops it.

I wonder if David Bowie knows. Then again, is the Highline Festival even really happening? The website still says "coming May 2007". hmm."

― danbunny, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

"a screechy Heil Hitler"..worth the price of admission?..how will post ironic anti nazi pro Vice anti fur pro Monte Cazzaza moderate parsers parse this?..

― danbunny, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

ban Bernard Albrecht

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:06 (nineteen years ago)

This actually goes back a long ways. In that famous WFMU radio broadcast he did that's a special feature on his documentary he calls his former manager a greedy jew, and this was in the early 90s. I guess the guy is crazy as hell but it doesn't mean someone shouldn't tell him to shut the fuck up sometimes.

― filthy dylan, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:15 (nineteen years ago)

How's he dealing with the death of Captain America?

― M.V., Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:34 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I'd heard about this before. It's a despicable outlook to have, but not so surprising when you consider paranoid delusions. I was going to trot out the line of it not affecting the art, but I feel like a lot of people do intrinsically connect Daniel's backstory with what he produces - I guess you can defend it by citing mental illness, but on the other hand it's a pretty indefensible position to take.

― emil.y, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

Uh, he has a severe and debilitating mental illness. He can't take care of himself. You have to cut him some slack. I'm sure he has a lot of odd and objectionable opinions.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 18:55 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I did make mention of that. But, you know, mental illnesses are too often thought of as something that makes someone more interesting, more romantic, more artistic. And they aren't. They can be horrible, nasty, awful things that make people do bad shit. I don't care whether he can be 'held responsible', anti-semitism itself is indefensible.

― emil.y, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

so mental illness is immoral?

― QuantumNoise, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think he's really a "Nazi," because he was raised by straight-up anti-Nazi WWII parents (I mean I'm pretty sure he's drawn plenty of Captain-America-punching-out-Adolf-Hitler pics), but I wouldn't be surprised if he does believe some awful anti-Semitic shit.

― Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

so mental illness is immoral?

No, the content is immoral. I am saying nothing about the person or the state that produced that content.

― emil.y, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:21 (nineteen years ago)

Well, mental illness most likely the case, maybe fundamentalist christian teachings could have something to do with it, but still, you can't always hide behind mental illness. I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer was mentally ill, but that doesn't really make murdering and eating people alright.

Who knows maybe this is just a relatively harmless fascination a la David Bowie, better that than a sincere feeling. . .

― mehlt, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:32 (nineteen years ago)

I think the pajama party + Nazi salute thing was just a botched joke fwiw, no "fascination" involved. Still indefensible tho.

― Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

FFS, why is it still surprising six years later that people on ILM would pop up to play Captain-Save-A-Crazy-Fascist?

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:38 (nineteen years ago)

Those guys from Skrewdriver, they're just manic depressive, cut 'em some slack.

― milo z, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:51 (nineteen years ago)

Crazy person says something unappealingly crazy. Uhhh, yeah. Big surprise.

Given Daniel's mental health, I can't see this as anything even remotely similar to legitimate "anti-semitism" (as espoused by unappealing sane people). More like the utterances of someone with Tourette's Syndrome.

― Pye Poudre, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not playing Capn-Save-A-Crazy-Fascist, I think DJ's views are completely fucking twisted.

― Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 19:58 (nineteen years ago)

lyrics from dj's "kool-aid":

"Adolf Hitler was a man, he was a big man / But God was bigger and Japan and Germany surrendered at the war."

make of it what you will. i've always heard that verse as righteous.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

When I saw the Simpsons episode where Ned Flanders has a room full of Beatles paraphernalaia, I thought of DJ.

― Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

Of course the thing at work here is that while lots of crazy people probably have awful thoughts, not so many of them have been given a public forum as DJ has. I've never listened to the guy...I mean why does anybody actually give a fuck about him?

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

We're really comparing Johnston to mid-70s Bowie? Did you guys see that documentary?

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:27 (nineteen years ago)

He writes good songs, and his admirers genuinely care about his well-being.

― Jazzbo, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:27 (nineteen years ago)

he wrote a couple good songs and his admirers creep the fuck out of me

― ghost rider, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

I dare you to convince me that most fascination with "outsider music" is anything other than contemptible.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

Unless he either loves performing or needs the money, I wish he'd stop playing shows.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:34 (nineteen years ago)

http://ultraville.com/university/cc/ackbar_b.gif

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:34 (nineteen years ago)

how exactly is it any more contemptible than fascination with oasis or babyshambles or amy winehouse or fleetwood mac or nirvana?

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

(xpost, dammit!)

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

[i]I dare you to convince me that most fascination with "outsider music" is anything other than contemptible.[i]

I think you can enjoy DJ's music without being "fascinated" with "outsider music," however you define it.

― Jazzbo, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:38 (nineteen years ago)

Damn.

― Jazzbo, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:38 (nineteen years ago)

Mankind is a Nazi.
(Humanity is the Devil)

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

FFS Curtis, I wan't talking about you!

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

all right then :D

― Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

awww, man, that's sad he did that.

my personal take is that it's probbaly as much a weird back-handed swipe at the one dude who over the years did the most to selflessly promote dj's art/ music and help daniel, former manager jeff tartakov. though i'm probably reading too much into it.

daniel's really good at fucking shit up whenever things are about to go well for him, and he's always on the verge of a greater success. hell, the reason blast first never released 'hi how are you' when they'd gone so far as to press copies and start with press (not long after homestead picked them up) was because he'd call them constantly, if i recall properly there, until he just pushed too many buttons and they said 'fuck it, we can't deal with this guy.'

i'd argue that "outsider music" does not exist, really, not in the same way that "art brut" does, anyway, in the clinical sense. that's another point entirely. but i do find irwin c's trademarked use of that phrase cloying and insulting, especially in the ways he clumps together artists of amazing if "quirky" merit together with entertaining oddities -- it's so fricking safe and sarah vowell-y and gross. i myself have never listened to and enjoyed dj's music out of some weird tourism of the mentally ill or whatever. or if i have, that was a minor part of it when i was a kid first discovering his stuff twenty years ago and i had no clue about the actualities of mental illness.

daniel was simply a great musician who's been mentally ill for years. honestly, he has done worse things than this before -- forcing that elderly woman to jump from her balcony in the late '80s when he thought the devil was in her house, or trying to crash the plane his dad was piloting some years later. it's tough to be a fan of his work sometimes, with stuff like this, and to not seem like an apologist in the process. (and this can all easily lead back to the age old questions of art vs. artist, of course.)

i'd hope that anyone who's had to endure the banal horror of mentail illness in their friends, family or even themselves might be able to drum up some empathy for the guy, and those who love him.

― Mike McGooney-gal, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

how exactly is it any more contemptible than fascination with oasis or babyshambles or amy winehouse or fleetwood mac or nirvana?

Which of those obsessions is often about laughing at the musician? Less true with Johnston, but overwhelmingly the case with Wesley Willis 'fans.'

― milo z, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:11 (nineteen years ago)

ack, that sounded way more cranky and preaching on stuff we probably already all know... sorry if so.

― Mike McGooney-gal, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:11 (nineteen years ago)

You're totally OTM though

― marmotwolof, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:31 (nineteen years ago)

leave Wesley Willis out of this!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 21:37 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, Mike, totally on target there. well said.

― sleeve, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

I guess the guy is crazy as hell but it doesn't mean someone shouldn't tell him to shut the fuck up ~~sometimes.~~

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 23:20 (nineteen years ago)

1 comment for SXSW07: The Nazi And Daniel Johnston »

1.

Daniel has been telling those jokes for at least four years now. He started them while we were touring together in Germany. I worked as his tour manager on and off from 1999-2004. I could never figure out what sparked them but i believe being in Germany might have influenced those statements. The challenge here is that everyone wants a logical explanation for why he would say something so insensitive and horrible but I truly believe some things that come from his mouth are beyond his own logic. They could be ideas built up subconsciously over time. I also believe Daniel still loves to shock people even after all the medication. He had that trait as a kid. I am sure Jeff Feuerzeig has an opinion he experienced this strangness while filming the Devil and Daniel Johnston.

Comment by Don Goede — March 20, 2007 @ 1:05 pm

― marmotwolof, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 23:31 (nineteen years ago)

Which of those obsessions is often about laughing at the musician? Less true with Johnston, but overwhelmingly the case with Wesley Willis 'fans.'

i think there are very few johnston listeners who laugh at him. but i don't doubt there's a sub-section of his audience that has at least a small fascination with the concept of a public meltdown. which i think is also true of a sub-section of the audiences for babyshambles, fleetwood mac, etc.

i don't think of daniel johnston and wesley willis in the same breath, ever.

and i agree that mike's take is eloquent and otm.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 23:33 (nineteen years ago)

For what it's worth, I spent a full evening with Johnston for a story, and found him pretty much nothing but well-meaning and sweet and eager to be liked by people -- it is very hard to imagine him having any kind of categorical hatred for anyone, not just because he's good-natured but also because his worldview is pretty limited to himself and not really broad or "political" in that way. Does that make sense? At this point, the guy's thinking is pretty tightly focused on whether he has enough cigarettes, whether he feels like having a Coke, and interacting with the people right next to him; he's not sitting around developing coherent theories about world history.

A lot of signifiers float through his art (the visual art especially) in ways that are pretty skewed and essentially childlike, to the point where his summary of WWII is something along the lines of "see, the good guys always win" -- and given that WWII looms pretty large in his imagination, I'm not entirely surprised that he'd toss out stuff like this without necessarily having a really rich understanding of its significance in the wider world. As for comments about his old manager, I'd be equally unsurprised if the time, place, and atmosphere where he grew up (fundamentalist Christian, small southern town, 60s/70s) hadn't passed on to him a bunch of prejudices that he hasn't exactly thought about or worked through. But by and large I'd be pretty confident that the guy likes people, and isn't possessed by any extreme categorical hates.

Hahaha the only time race or religion came up during my night with him was that I had a horrible embarrassing "blemish" right in the middle of my forehead, and toward the middle of the night he said "hey, so are you hindu?" and I said "no, my family's Christian" and he said "oh, so that's just a pimple," and I nodded, and he nodded back sadly, as if to say that he'd been there too, and totally felt my pain.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 01:32 (nineteen years ago)

nabisco, you truly are ILX's perpetual fort knox. hurrah!

― unfished business, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 01:41 (nineteen years ago)

dude's not all there and so I don't think you can fault him for any of his fascinations, but I don't think it was just a botched joke at sxsw. I interviewed him in 2000 and the first thing his manager said to me when they came in the door was, "just so you know, Daniel's in an anti-semitic phase right now." though he didn't say anything particularly odd until the end of the interview when he said, into the video camera, "I am Adolf Hitler! Together we shall win the war!" The film crew for that doc was there too, but I guess for good reasons that didn't get into the film. Similarly, when his film crew asked him to stop off at the vigil for George Harrison, he replied, "I don't wanna go. There'll be Hare Krishnas there and I don't have any change." I don't think he's anti-krishna, but he is brilliant.

― certain, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 02:01 (nineteen years ago)

I look forward to the Ron Howard movie which will carefully gloss over these incidents. :-)

― I am not afraid of you and you can spank my ass, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 02:03 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not so much offended as perplexed - and I tend to be very sensitive to anti-semitism. "I heard the Jews are having a pajama party at the concentration camp"doesn't even doesn't make sense as a joke or as a disparaging remark about the Jews. Perhaps it could be written off as bad taste if not for Daniel's history of this sort of thing (I heard the WFMU interview, and was disgusted by his characterization of Tartakov).

― mike a, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

I agree that Mike's post was very well-put. I don't know very much about DJ, but if he is as ill, childlike, etc. as people seem to be saying then I have to question whatever person/group/infrastructure is putting him up on a stage at SXSW, since it doesn't seem that he would be capable of doing that himself.

I'm generally suspicious of artist/audience relationships that involve more "audience AT artist" than "audience WITH artist" (wish I could think of how to put that better). Wesley Willis is pretty much the ultimate example but I'd imagine there's a huge strain of that with DJ as well. Lots of great thoughtful posts on this thread.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 14:32 (nineteen years ago)

I'm generally suspicious of artist/audience relationships that involve more "audience AT artist" than "audience WITH artist"

my impression is that dj's core audience genuinely likesa his songs and is rooting FOR him, which isn't quite the same as either of those two options.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 14:37 (nineteen years ago)

There are lots of messy things about Daniel Johnston's personal condition and even the situations in which he wrote and recorded a lot of his songs, but it's REALLY weird to claim many of his fans are laughing at his records: his best songs are completely straightforward and coherent pop music, nothing crazy or strange about them. The music's relatively skilled and firmly grounded in pop basics (Beatles, Dylan, Elvis Costello), and the lyrics and metaphors are as carefully constructed as anyone's. There's really nothing train-wrecky about the songs at all.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:56 (nineteen years ago)

Some of DJ's songs are really good/touching ("Hey Joe," "Come See Me Tonight") but usually they just make me really, really uncomfortable, esp. his earliest recordings.

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

really? uncomfortable how?

i vastly prefer anything he did up until and maybe including recording with kramer at noise in the late '80s to anything else, myself.

― Mike McGooney-gal, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't great art supposed to make you feel uncomfortable? *ducks*

― Jazzbo, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:19 (nineteen years ago)

Nabisco, you inserted the "laughing" I was deliberately avoiding. I don't think most of his fans are laughing at him, but I think there's probably a greater gulf of separation than with your typical artist. And that really HAS to be true at his performances.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:20 (nineteen years ago)

I very, very strongly disagree with that: I'm not sure how the "gulf of separation" between me and Daniel Johnston is any greater than the one between me and Iggy Pop, me and Clipse, or me and the Carter Family.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

really? uncomfortable how?

It just makes me uncomfortable. Not necessarily because it's "too personal" or anything, it just does. I'm talking circa Songs of Pain; something about songs like "Hate Song" really turns me off.

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:34 (nineteen years ago)

(and I think "Hate Song" is catchy! But the quality of production makes me a bit ill. And the whole "contemplating suicide with a knife" thing is a little creepy.)

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

There is totally plenty of Johnston that's tough listening -- less often because he sounds crazed and more often because he sounds very genuinely depressed. I'd guess, though, that even for Johnston fans those tracks kinda constitute the arcana and the "deep catalog" and the full-committment stuff: the songs people really love from him tend to be the ones where he sounds most clever, coherent, and usually either happy or gently wistful.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

Continuing the devil's advocate: So do DJ and his sweet classicist pop songs acheive his current level of fame without the back story?

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

(That's probably also a function of his just plain writing better music when he's coherent and happy and stuff -- the really harrowing recordings tend not to be very good songs, because the guy's just not doing well in general.)

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

Continuing the devil's advocate: So do DJ and his sweet classicist pop songs acheive his current level of fame without the back story?

a) what level of fame? he doesn't sell that many records and he's not exactly selling out the bowery ballroom.

b) do the arcade fire achieve their current level of fame if they're on interscope instead of merge and they wear different clothes and they're promoted in an entirely different way? which is to say, i don't think you can separate anyone's "story" from their level of fame.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:49 (nineteen years ago)

xpost: CAD, three answers to that:

(a) The question is kind of tautological and doesn't make the point you want it to: what back story would DJ have, if not the one he has? And how would these songs EXIST without DJ as the person he is to create them? What would they sound like? How are you going to separate these things?

(b) Keep in mind that DJ's 1980s cult fandom existed without much of a specific "backstory" -- plenty of people, both in Austin and elsewhere, seemed to appreciate these things just as random tapes that somehow came into their lives, containing only the information about the artist that you could pick up from the songs themselves.

(c) And still, I'm not sure why, if DJ were a mentally healthy guy who recorded these songs slightly more self-consciously, his reception would be so different from, say, early Mountain Goats songs about how there are monkeys in the basement.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:53 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not an expert in Art Brut, but isn't a large part of it (at least acc. to Dubuffet) the naivety and simplicity of the artist engaging in the work. He isn't tied down by considerations of the market, or considerations of context in general (outside his own personal context). So, stop me if I'm totally off-base, but doesn't accepting Daniel Johnston, or any Outsider artist, require you to abandon your cultural context in order to enter their own personal context? As such, I might find his Antisemitism (or whatever it is) reprehensible, but if I find it problematic while I listening to him, I'm not "getting" the art. (Think the original Art Brut: Mental patients in asylums. Not bringing your own beliefs to the artwork is essential to getting to the 'folk art' aspect of it.) This might be a reason not to listen/look at Art Brut, but I'm not really sure how you can condemn it on an artistic level.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

Nabsico, (b) is the one that's interesting to me--that's good if true. My question was a little blunt but I still think it did the job. As an aside, comparing DJ's story to something like the Arcade Fire is willfully missing what I'm after.

Being too young to know how DJ was received in the 80s, his story came to me as "Hey did you know there's a really crazy guy in Texas who writes nice pop songs with a childlike touch and oh yeah Cobain liked him?" It may well be that most of DJ's listeners have been charmed by his songs and would be anyway, but my inner cynic can't help but feel like something, and it's a hard think to pin down, is exploiting/getting exploited. It could be that his records are relatively "normal" and approachable but you can't tell me that, going to see him perform in 2007, there's no thought of "OK, how crazy is this guy going to be?" which is not a thought I've had about any artist I've gone to see recently.

What I'm really after is at what point does an artist's context become completely intertwined with their music? I can't listen to Wesley Willis and "forget" that he was a paranoid schizophrenic, nor could I listen to DJ and "forget" his history of odd behavior and the fact that he doesn't understand the gravitas of Nazi jokes. I could try, but it's a losing battle.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:06 (nineteen years ago)

Keep in mind that DJ's 1980s cult fandom existed without much of a specific "backstory" -- plenty of people, both in Austin and elsewhere, seemed to appreciate these things just as random tapes that somehow came into their lives, containing only the information about the artist that you could pick up from the songs themselves.

That's not exactly true. Before I ever heard a Daniel Johnston cassette (circa '87ish), I'd read articles in Spin and Sound Choice about "the mentally ill guy from Austin who worked at McDonald's and gave his tapes out to hipster-looking folks." To what extent DJ allowed himself to be marketed this way, I'm not sure, but I'm positive he had at least some self-awareness of it. As early as Hi How Are You, he was throwing out lines like "I guess I lean toward the obsessive/But that's just the way it is when you're a manic depressive." The reason we're still talking about him now instead of, say, Wildman Fischer, is that he writes genuinely great songs. They work regardless of the backstory.

― mike a, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

CAD: i think comparing dj's story to something like the arcade fire is a lot closer to what you're after than you might think. every band has a backstory. very few of them involve mental illness aind singular obsessions like dj's. but they all involve something. and they all contribute, both positively and negatively, to how a band is perceived and received. so you could quite reasonably ask the same question of any artist, and i'm not sure asking it of dj and asking it of arcade fire is all that different. the answers might be different, but the question's pretty much the same.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

Browsing the Art Brut and related pages on Wikipedia is proving useful in helping me think about this. If DJ's songs are as "normal" as has been suggested then he falls at the tame end of the spectrum, but how is most interest in this sort of thing (music, visual art, etc.) not completely smug and exploitative? I would never condemn DJ's (or anyone's) right to create, but what the hell is the motivation of viewer/listener?

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

Jew never him

― M.V., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

Cuz, you're right, you can ask it of any artist, but I'm going to say that there's a reasonably clear line between "artists with severe mental illnesses" and those who do not fit that category.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

the mentally ill guy from Austin who worked at McDonald's and gave his tapes out to hipster-looking folks

But this is not exactly a mythic backstory and more just an accurate description of who the guy is.

what the hell is the motivation of viewer/listener?

In this case, that he writes nice, catchy, clever, honest, and often perceptive songs about relatable shit like pining for girls! It is seriously not much more complicated than that!

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

K, I got it about DJ. About the broader category I'm not so sure.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:26 (nineteen years ago)

As such, I might find his Antisemitism (or whatever it is) reprehensible, but if I find it problematic while I listening to him, I'm not "getting" the art.

I'm pretty sure you'll never really have to confront anti-Semitism within DJ's music itself!

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:29 (nineteen years ago)

I'm pretty sure you'll never really have to confront anti-Semitism within DJ's music itself!

In that case, it's the same exact question as the Wagner question. Or the Heidegger question.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:33 (nineteen years ago)

I am now imagining American bomber jets attacking a Vietnamese coastal town to the tune of "Unpack Your Adjectives."

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:37 (nineteen years ago)

Except that neither of them were mentally and instead of making nonsensical jokes Wagner published anti-semetic screeds and Heidegger was a member of the real, live National Socialist party.

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:39 (nineteen years ago)

While the Prinzhorn collection (culled from psychiatric institutions) presented a lot of the "early classics" of art brut, Dubuffet railed against any categories such as "art of the mentally ill," claiming you might as well say that there is an art of "people with knee problems, or dyspeptics," if I remember clearly.

I strongly recommend finding a copy of Dubuffet's essays, released by Four Walls Eight Windows, 'Asphyxiating Culture' -- some of it's pretty dated and all of it is polemical, but I love the spirit and gist of it, myself: http://www.amazon.com/Asphyxiating-Culture-Other-Writings-Dubuffet/dp/0941423093.

― Mike McGooney-gal, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:41 (nineteen years ago)

(Not to diminish what DJ has said, but it's insane to think that this presents moral/political issues anywhere near the problems related to those guys.)

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:42 (nineteen years ago)

Yet I'm still willing to listen to Wagner and study Heidegger. A fortiori I'm ok with Daniel Johnston who has neither published anti-semitic screeds or was a member of the Nazi party.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:42 (nineteen years ago)

Out for the day, thanks for one of the better ILX conversations I've seen recently.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

― Mike McGooney-gal, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:47 (nineteen years ago)

Once again: anti-Jewish bigotry and fucked-up WWII "jokes" are not necessarily the same thing as organized systematic "political" anti-Semitism. Honest to god, I seriously doubt Johnston's worldview is broad or coherent enough to contain the latter, and I'm not kidding when I say he's largely focused on cigarettes and food. I can totally see how he'd have run-of-the-mill bigoted ideas, and I can imagine him suddenly busting out with some sudden crazed conspiracy theory involving Satan, Jews, George Jones, and numerology, but I seriously doubt he's some kind of consistent, principled world-scale anti-Semite.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

nabisco haven't you called me out quite vocally for continued support of on-tape racist paris hilton, though, in the past? just in light of this capn-save-an-antisemite thing you're doing here...

(fwiw liking johnston or hilton's music != supporting their beliefs/stoopid comments, as should be obvious, i think; it bothers me more to learn that current indie favourites sunnnnn((((oooo or however you type their name ran ads from an organised white power record label)

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

Sunn 0))) don't use drums because they're too African

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:01 (nineteen years ago)

You must be confusing me with someone else, Lex -- I've only called you out for being a tiresome, self-aggrandizing, third-grade intellectual caliber prick.

Also deliberately illiterate as usual, in light of your post here.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:02 (nineteen years ago)

I can only imagine Paris Hilton being put on lithium and ballooning to 250 lbs.

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:02 (nineteen years ago)

Wow. Watch this conversation disintigrate in the space of a couple posts. Anyway, thanks for the Dubuffet reccomendation, Mike. I'll have to check it out.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:36 (nineteen years ago)

If you like certain works of art, you'll probably seek out other works created under similar circumstances. So, it's could be reasonable & nonexploitative to cultivate an interest in Outsider Art / Art Brut as a response to certain instances of the work itself. And a lot of people seem to think there's something "pure" about art made by self-taught "eccentrics". They believe that such art communicates without recourse to the common, meaning-deadening strategies employed by sane people and art professionals. This seems likely -- whether or not it's of value is another question.

And when we look at any art, aren't we basically looking for unique experiences, unique points of view? Madness and sanity aren't clearly marked territories, and lots of famous, well-respected non-"outsider" artists seem to have been very nearly insane, if not totally out to lunch. I just don't think things are so cut-and-dried as some here seem to imply. Sure, Wesley Willis is an obvious case of someone who sits very comfortably in the nutjob bin, but while I don't care for his music at all, most of the people I know who do like him aren't laughing AT him. They're laughing, sure, but as crazy as he was, he thought his songs were funny, too.

― Pye Poudre, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

oh lexpaws

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

i think challening popular/common/accepted definitions of sanity/insanity need to occur on the most fundamental of levels and at all times -- even when it seems "obvious" that someone is a "nut job." This probably doesn't contribute to this discussion, but I feel like it's something that needs to be restated and ruminated upon all the time, especially in a society where it so often seems like the inmates are running the asylum. Who's more sane/insane Wesley Willis or Dick Cheney?

― QuantumNoise, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 23:25 (nineteen years ago)

To the lex, Stephen O'Malley(of Sunn o))) edited a magazine that apparently published those ads. It has nothing to do with Greg Anderson or Sunn o)) (or the Southern Lord label).
There's an interview about it in rockarolla magazine a few issues ago. He just said the magazine had to pay bills and they needed the money. or something to that effect.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 23:32 (nineteen years ago)

interesting take, QN, though i think it's safe to say there's an extremely large difference between physiological illness and cold, calculated evil. apples and oranges, as they say. or pills and tanks. dj's and ww's afflictions aren't metaphors. they're physiological illnesses.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 23:36 (nineteen years ago)

thomas szasz to thread!

― Mike McGooney-gal, Thursday, 22 March 2007 01:26 (nineteen years ago)

"i think challening popular/common/accepted definitions of sanity/insanity need to occur on the most fundamental of levels and at all times -- even when it seems "obvious" that someone is a "nut job." This probably doesn't contribute to this discussion, but I feel like it's something that needs to be restated and ruminated upon all the time, especially in a society where it so often seems like the inmates are running the asylum. Who's more sane/insane Wesley Willis or Dick Cheney?"

Man, can't we get to the end of one thread without a post-structuralist critique of Rawls' rational liberalism?

― I eat cannibals, Thursday, 22 March 2007 01:29 (nineteen years ago)

The difference between Wesley Willis and Dick Cheney is that Dick Cheney dragged a whole nation in with him when he decided to go on a warhellride.

― Curt1s Stephens, Thursday, 22 March 2007 01:32 (nineteen years ago)

Bush Administration pardons Scooty Libby: Example of Outsider Artwork?
Was Cheney peppering his friend with birdshot Art Brut? Discuss.
Describe Dubuffet's critique of the war in Iraq as "Outsider Performance Art."

― Mordechai Shinefield, Thursday, 22 March 2007 02:06 (nineteen years ago)

"how is most interest in this sort of thing (music, visual art, etc.) not completely smug and exploitative? I would never condemn DJ's (or anyone's) right to create, but what the hell is the motivation of viewer/listener?"

there is a certain strain of people who approach it for the wrong reasons (a lot of Wesley Willis fans come to mind), but I would wager that most who champion this sort of stuff are genuinely compelled by the art and are not choking back laughter or viewing it as some sort of freak show . the assumption that there has to be a condescension/smugness at play seems pretty cynical, not to mention in a way fairly disparaging of the art istelf.

― circa1916, Thursday, 22 March 2007 03:48 (nineteen years ago)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GCBbmHJnSg0

― 2x4, Friday, 23 March 2007 04:53 (nineteen years ago)

yeesh.

at least he kind-of apologized.

― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 23 March 2007 04:59 (nineteen years ago)

That's funny how you can see the camera flash just as he gives the Nazi salute.

― mike a, Friday, 23 March 2007 14:22 (nineteen years ago)

Yikes... it's unfortunate how actually "with it" he seems in that clip ("I'm bombin' here!"), for a number of reasons. At least he doesn't follow it up with a Michael Richards-esque "You see? You see the power words still have?" or whatever.

― Ben Boyerrr, Friday, 23 March 2007 14:36 (nineteen years ago)

However weird that joke is I think it's quite obvious he's not telling it like a Nazi. This should be not be a big deal.

― sonderangerbot, Friday, 23 March 2007 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry, any joke that starts with "The Jews" should not be told, much less into a microphone in front of a huge fucking crowd of people. Regardless of how little sense the joke makes.

― Ben Boyerrr, Friday, 23 March 2007 14:48 (nineteen years ago)

More than ever, I don't understand how attending one of his shows can be considered anything but rubbernecking.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 23 March 2007 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, it's not that bad. I'm Jewish and not the least bit offended. It's a botched joke from a mentally unstable performer. It's like getting offended when the sex pistols wore swastika armbands.

The one time I was offended by an anti-semitic comment was one that guy Gr3gg Easterbrook made a few years back, on his blog. He was talking about how offended he was by the movie Kill Bill and then....

― kornrulez6969, Friday, 23 March 2007 16:15 (nineteen years ago)

i think there are very few johnston listeners who laugh at him. but i don't doubt there's a sub-section of his audience that has at least a small fascination with the concept of a public meltdown. which i think is also true of a sub-section of the audiences for babyshambles, fleetwood mac, etc.

And a larger one for Cat Power, methinks...

― NYCNative, Friday, 23 March 2007 16:34 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

he's in town tonight. i was thinking of going. major moral dilemma after seeing the 'jokes' but then i don't know much about his illness/es.

hmm.

― piscesx, Tuesday, 3 November 2009 05:29 (sixteen years ago)

Well you could read up on his life/career/music/troubles from the reams of biographical info that's readily available, and check out his music in the same fashion, and decide on that basis, I guess. But yeah, pretty sure Daniel Johnston is actually a Nazi so good work identifying that 'moral dilemma'

― War On The Terrances (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 08:48 (sixteen years ago)

http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_424035412_206047_daniel-johnston.jpg

― Obscured by clowns (NickB), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 09:07 (sixteen years ago)

I really don't understand that picture at all.

― Obscured by clowns (NickB), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 09:08 (sixteen years ago)

http://brella.org/sandpebbles/Daniel%20Johnston.htm

What characters are you drawing?
Let's see. There's my new character Ratzoid (laughs). He's a Nazi against the evil Jews. The evil Jew Party in World War 2. He's a kung fu expert in the Nazi Party. He is a real rat. Muscle bound. His girlfriend is a real rat too. I draw that a lot. It's a fantasy comic book, you know.

What kind of situations does Ratzoid get himself into?
Well, he always has, like, a press conference that always turns into a real big fight. That's what I always imagine. Like he's standing there doing a press conference and then he ends up killing everybody.

Is it based on anyone in particular?
Yeah, it's based on Adolph Hitler. Like Adolph Hitler became Ratzoid somehow in some kind of freaky experiment. The real Adolph Hitler instead of being dead somehow he survived and became Ratzoid (laughs).

― Obscured by clowns (NickB), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 09:15 (sixteen years ago)

http://www.brella.org/sandpebbles/ratzoid2.jpg

― Obscured by clowns (NickB), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 09:21 (sixteen years ago)

I saw him for the first time ever post-"jokes" and he was great

― But no hope for norwegian posters, sorry. (Curt1s Stephens), Tuesday, 3 November 2009 09:44 (sixteen years ago)

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